


Creature Like You

by elle_nic



Category: The Devil Wears Prada (2006)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, emily and the twins are only sort of mentioned, fiction&femslashevent, i ignored my million other wips to write this and tbqh i dont regret it, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 09:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19999525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elle_nic/pseuds/elle_nic
Summary: Miranda's life since Andrea entered it in five parts.“And it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed. That a creature like you exists in my world.” – Nicole Torres.





	Creature Like You

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not entirely sure what this is but every Mirandy writer has a cerulean story so here's my take on it. Let me know what you think and please enjoy :)))

_“And it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed._

_That a creature like you exists in my world.”_

– Nicole Torres.

**Just a drop.**

Cerulean had become the colour of intrigue. So had sable brown and topaz, and tan and horribly kilted patterns. Intriguing, of course, because of how hideous all those things were together, layered without care or thought or consequence. A bold tongue and wittily selected words, the disdain of someone being dismissed before they had finished what they were saying… That was how Andréa landed in her world.

Cerulean had gone as fast as it had come, as had the level of boldness that pink lips formed. The skirt had over-stayed its welcome in the end, but even that went. Unconditioned hair irritated arsenic eyes and arsenic mouth, but Miranda never talked so explicitly about Andréa’s clothes or hair or general appearance. She didn’t trust herself not to say something too left of field, too inappropriate (“Do you understand how divine a woman is who dresses with intent?”) so, maybe out of character of her, Miranda withheld her counsel.

She grew more and more irritated with the ongoing rebellion, but Miami was the straw that broke Chanel’s back. She had denied the extremity of the weather. Denied the chance that staying an extra day in Miami for the shoot, knowing full well there was a horrific weather phenomenon approaching, would have caused her to miss her daughters’ recital. She didn’t listen to Rachmaninoff, didn’t like anything he had to offer, but she wanted to see her daughters play it. She hadn’t, of course.

She hadn’t liked the sound of Rachmaninoff, but she liked the sound of Andréa’s genuine remorse even less. How her eyes, large and soft like some Disney character, had widened and watered. How a tear, crystal, _just a drop_ , had fallen to her flushed cheek, pinked from humiliation. Humiliation that Miranda had aimed at her and fired. She never missed, but when topaz eyes looked down and away from her before walking out of the room, she wondered if it was a bad thing to miss every now and then.

Perhaps she’d give it a try.

Perhaps not.

**Half full.**

It was a good thing, a marvellous thing, really, for Andréa to go to Paris. The opportunities she’d have would be endless with all the leading figures of the publishing industry in the capital of France for a week or so. Andréa didn’t seem to share in her… _enthusiasm_. Poor Emily, the girl’s eyes had said. But who was Emily in that moment, Miranda wondered? She was not important, not when Andréa was going to _Paris_! Miranda would show her everything, take her everywhere. She’d guide her to opportunity then watch with splendour as Andréa flourished. She wanted to see joy and gratefulness in Andréa’s eyes but all she saw was bottled red hair and vibrant eyeshadow and sad green eyes.

Poor Emily.

.oOo.

Miranda was wondering if perhaps she was an optimist after all. She had never looked at customs with such… level-headedness before. She had breezed through silently and boarded the plane waiting for them, then buckled in. She had even listened to the emergency procedures, and who ever listened to those? Optimists, that’s who, and Miranda was convinced that was her. If a glass was half-filled with Pellegrino, was it half full, or half empty? It didn’t matter, she argued, because Andréa would always keep the glass full. Her glasses had never been less than crisp, cold and refilled since Andréa stripped her cerulean.

It was with a dawning fright that Miranda realised that the intrigue had stayed. More than that: it had grown.

Looking to her left where Andréa sat, a seat between them, Miranda reminded herself she was married.

She wondered why it mattered, but secretly, she thought she knew the answer.

**Maximum capacity.**

Looking back amongst the flashing and the pushing and the French being shouted at her, Miranda stopped to realise that Andréa was not behind her. She was by the car, looking up at the steps like they were covered in ice and she might slip down to the road if she tried to climb them. She looked at Miranda as though that might be her fault, but Miranda could see no reason for it. She had only been honest in the car, but she saw the same look in Andréa’s eyes: bottled red hair, vibrant eyeshadow and sad green eyes. She saw hesitation now, as their eyes met. Miranda lowered her sunglasses, and to her unending but well-hidden relief, it was enough.

The clicking of Andréa’s heels had never been more of a soothing cadence than that moment that she skipped up the steps and pushed Miranda forward through the paparazzi and into their event. Her heart was beating terribly fast, but that was because of the excitement of the crowd outside, and certainly not because Andréa’s hand had touched her for the first time. Certainly not.

Her heart did not settle. She told herself it was because the fashion that had walked on the runway was inspired, was decadent, was art. It wasn’t. It was barely mediocre, but the flush in her cheeks was to be explained away somehow. When she hummed, as she usually did when she was pleased, Andréa looked at her. This time she did not see red and vibrance and green. She saw a white coif and grey eyes and cerulean. She was in her hotel room again and alone when she was finally honest with herself.

Cerulean yesterday meant intrigue. Cerulean last September meant spontaneity. But today, Miranda mourned, it meant love. And she was not very good at keeping that at all.

**Spilling over.**

Divorce papers had been a momentary bleakness on her colour wheel. Like a paper cut, they stung but not for long. She was never truly sad for long when Andréa was near to her and now she understood it wasn’t because the girl was competent. Or maybe it was. Miranda didn’t know, but she did know that Andréa was looking at her differently now. She looked at her in the eye and was no longer the first to look away. She was quieter now, too. So was Nigel. So was Miranda. The only one that seemed to be relatively normal was Emily. Poor Emily, who Miranda vowed to promote to the art department.

The twins had decided they wanted to live with their father for a time, knowing that as the divorce was final the press would start up again. They had reassured her endlessly that they weren’t angry at her, both the only ones to know the true depth of Miranda’s need for reassurances that way. She kissed them for long moments before seeing them off at the train station, with promises to call every other day. It would be enough, she knew (because she was an optimist now, she reaffirmed), and maybe she might be able to shed some guilt for being late to dinner so often.

Andréa dropped the Book off that night, Miranda not having trusted the newest Emily to do so, but she did not take off her heels at the door as she usually did. She did not wait for Miranda to call out her name, a dulcet, “Andréa,” ringing out on the first floor. She clacked her way to the den where Miranda always waited for her, placed the Book aside on a side table and pulled Miranda to her feet before she could pretend to be furious by the presumptuous behaviour.

“We’re completely different,” she said with absolutely no context. “I went to Emily and told her face to face, and I apologised but promised to make it up to her. You didn’t do that for Nigel,” she said gravely, looking down into Miranda’s eyes. She had the advantage of height with her heels still on, Miranda realised, and she knew it was quite on purpose.

“I will make it up to him,” she said instead of ‘I love you, I love you, I love you-‘. Andréa nodded then let go of her hands. Miranda was disappointed that the contact would be ending but stopped worrying when those same warm palms cupped her elbows. She had not finished processing that before she felt a forehead against her own.

“We’re completely different,” Andréa repeated, softer this time, like it was meant to soothe. “But we fit, don’t we?”

Miranda swallowed once. “I’m an optimist, Andréa,” she announced. It rewarded her with a sceptical smile, but Andréa didn’t disagree with her further than that. “I’m an optimist,” she said again, to drive the point home. “Of course we fit,” she said haughtily. But Andréa could see, she knew. She could see the uncertainty, the need for reassurance with things like love, especially love, so in her eyes, Andréa showed her cerulean and the Eiffel Tower and the flashing lights of paparazzi cameras.

“I know why you don’t like freesias,” Andy whispered with a tenderness Miranda had not expected. “It’s because they’re your favourite,” she announced, like she was telling some unbelievable secret.

“I know why you didn’t tell me you could speak French,” Miranda said back. “It’s because you know I can, too. You don’t like to step on my toes.”

“Nonsense,” Andréa teased with a gentle smile.

Miranda smiled back.

**Satisfied.**

Cerulean had once meant intrigue to Miranda. It had meant spontaneity and horrible polyblend. It had meant purposeful ignorance and determination and stubbornness. It still meant all those things when Andréa wore the colour, but now it also meant a warm bed and hot coffee and laughter that was just a touch too loud wherever it rang. It meant constant reassurance that she was, in fact, loved, and she would not cease to be.

Cerulean was just another colour, another shade of blue every day of her life before Andréa had landed in her world. Since then it had been the slow trickle of water, drop by drop, in a bucket that had been forgotten in a loveless marriage. Every day the drops fell until the bucket was half full, until it was at maximum capacity, until it was spilling over. Miranda did not know where the bucket was now in the flood that Andréa had brought, but Miranda didn’t care to know.

She was in love.

She was satisfied.


End file.
